For Molly, computer play in a simulated world connected strongly with off-line play. It reinforced her desire to create fictional worlds of her own. And it helped sharpen her understanding of that creative endeavor. In evaluating the imaginative and creafive worth of childhood activities, of course, this is the gold standard: that reading or watching television, that trips to the theater, to art and science ce museuns, an and id yyes, that play with computer games should stimulate personal en...

And when we think of why we feel that brown-eyed and blue-eyed
humans, or Inuit and !Kung, are members of the same species, we realize
that it’s because they can mate with each other and produce offspring
that contain combinations of their genes. In other words, they belong
to the same gene pool. When you ponder cryptic species, and variation
within humans, you arrive at the notion that species are distinct
not merely because they look different, but because there are barriers
between them ...

The more parents talk to their children, even in the earliest moments of life, the better their kids linguistic abilities become and the faster that improvement is achieved. The gold standard is 2,100 words per hour. The variety of the words spoken (nouns, verbs, and adjectives used, along with the length and complexity of phrases and sentences) is nearly as important as the number of words spoken. So is the amount of positive feedback. You can reinforce language skills through interaction: l...